February 10, 1840 Queen Victoria's Wedding

 

 

Hello. On this day, February 10, 1840, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...

 

 The above depiction of the wedding was finished 2 years after the wedding and was done from sketches made at the wedding...too bad they just missed the introduction of photographs which came just a few years later...

 

The Queen, with a diminutive stature of just under 5 feet tall

must had looked pretty spectacular in the first white wedding dress...

 

I took this at a exhibition of Queen Victoria's wardrobe done at Kensington Palace a few years ago... 

 This is the famous wedding portrait commission by Queen Victoria from artist Feanz Victor Winterhalter as a wedding gift for  Prince Albert, from sketches made at the wedding

 

 

Prince Albert gave Victoria this gorgeous Sapphire and Diamond brooch which you can see in the wedding portraits... gorgeous!

 

 

 The marriage was extremely happy, and after his death at age 42, Queen Victoria wore mourning until her death in 1901. 

 

 

Queen Victoria continued to wear on formal occasions her wedding veil, which was buried with her along with a marble replica of Albert's hand that was always beside her bed.....

 

World War I China From Royal Albert, The Victoria And Albert Museum

It's been awhile...but life happened, and I had to take a break from one of my blogs...and this was the one that was put on hold for awhile. When my husband was having a bit of a bad patch with Parkinson's Disease, I just didn't have time for everything...any of you ever feel like that????

I think what prompted me was finding this...a fantastic teacup trio from World War I with a 1914 mark by Royal Albert Crown China, England...the early version of Royal Albert China.

The war here was called The European War, and was thought to be "The War To End All Wars" and how I wish that had been the case. The cup and plate bear the words:

 No Price Can Be To High When Honour And Freedom Are At Stake

and that was a very popular slogan at the time.

 

 The flags of France, Russia, Belgium and Japan are depicted in hand painted enamel on transfer with the slogan "United We Stand". These nations were allies of England during the war...but think of what happened in the next decades....

This is the mark...very different from the Royal Albert, England marks we are all familiar with...There is also a cream pitcher in the pattern as well...

Patriotic china from World War I is pretty rare today...really historic survivals of a time that is long past.....for more info on these items at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos...

I thought I'd share a visit a couple of years ago to our favorite Victoria & Albert Museum in London...affectionately known as The V&A. We visit pretty well every time we are in London. The collections are pretty well everything you could possibly want to see from ancient to modern.

The last visit, we spent a lot of time in the English Arts And Crafts exhibit...it is synonymous with lovely hand crafted  items and parallels the Aesthetic Movement in the US. It's one of my favorite design periods. The 1860s ignited a reaction to the Industrial Revolution's mass produced goods and artists like William Morris, Phillip Webb, Archibald Knox and others pioneered a return to hand crafted items of beauty. William Morris famously said:

 “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” William Morris, 1834-1896

 

This is an Archibald Know sterling silver with stones and enamel box at the Victoria and Albert.

This is a display of everyday kitchen items but decorated beautifully despite being utilitarian objects. I actually took this photo because we had the ivory crumber on the wall there in the shop at the time I took the photo....

There is a large display of Arts And Crafts china and silver as well. 

And I loved this large Wedgwood jasperware jardinere.  There is always too much to see and not enough time at the V&A!


Thanks for joining me! It will be nice to connect with friends through this blog again.
Cheers!